


"I Did What I Had To Do"

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Charmed
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:16:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She did what she had to do, but she hadn't counted on the guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"I Did What I Had To Do"

She hated this feeling. Hated the whole thing.

Hurting anyone had never been in her plans and with one phrase, one decision, she had set up an entire situation that would end up causing nothing but hurt. There was no way that any of this could end up any differently and the guilt was starting to eat away at her. It really wasn't something that she was used to and she would be happy never to feel like this ever again.

A single lie.

A single lie told to the two people who mattered most to her in this world.

"He's gone," she had said. "I did what I had to do."

If she had only said something like that one time, she might have been forgiven. However, she kept allowing them to think that he was dead. She let them believe that she had done what her duty required her to do. If she hadn't stuck to that, they would have understood what she had done by lying to them.

She didn't come clean with the lie. She couldn't. To tell them the truth would mean that he would probably die and she couldn't bear that happening. Not being able to be with him was hard enough, but not having him somewhere in the world at all would be more than she could bear.

So, she lied and she continued to lie.

They thought that she had made the hard choice and vanquished the man that she had loved so much. They were handling her with kid gloves and being so sympathetic and supportive. They didn't know and they could never know. They would never believe that he was no longer a threat to them and they would hunt him down and make sure he was dead.

It would kill a part of her if that happened.

She had to keep up the lie, keep dealing with the guilt that was destroying her from the inside.

"Cole's dead."

She had to keep repeating that, keep making them believe that. There was no way that they would ever understand why she hadn't been able to destroy him -- why she had let him go.

Why she had lied to them.

She did what she had to do. The only thing that her heart and soul would allow her to do.

He was alive and safe from them.

It was worth the guilt that was eating her alive.


End file.
